


Close Your Eyes (Two Lullabies)

by doctornerdington



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Comfort, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Lullabies, M/M, Mild Angst, Post-Season/Series 03, maternal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 21:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2597699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctornerdington/pseuds/doctornerdington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two linked 221Bs, set post S3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Your Eyes (Two Lullabies)

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for missoj, who won my Tumblr follower contest. Yay!  
> Prompt: close your eyes.

One

It has been eleven days since she died – since _they_ died, Sherlock amends. Maternal death in childbirth is not statistically as rare as--

He shakes his head. His concern is not Mary, but John. John who has barely spoken a word. John who doesn’t return texts or phone calls or open his door. John who has disappeared.

Baker Street is unthinkable without him: always has been, but especially now. There’s nothing for it. He grabs his lock-picks, and breaks into John’s flat. He’s unsurprised to find him sitting silently on his couch, in the dark. John is equally unsurprised to see him; asks no questions as he removes his coat and joins him.

They sit in familiar silence. An hour passes. Maybe more. Sherlock finds that he’s humming.

_Au clair de la lune_  
 _Les objets sont bleus_  
 _Plaignons l'infortune_  
 _De ce malheureux_  
 _Las! sa fille est morte_  
 _Ce n'est pas un jeu_  
 _Ouvrez-lui la porte_  
 _Pour l'amour de Dieu._

“What’s that?”

“Hmm…? Oh, just something my grandmother used to sing. A lullaby, I think.”

And at that, John cracks. A few reluctant tears turn into a flood, turn into wordless keening. Sherlock reaches out, hesitantly, and finds himself thrown back under the weight of John’s desperate embrace. He closes his eyes.

This, then, is what it feels like, Sherlock thinks. To break.

 

* * * * *

 

Two

When John arrives, Sherlock is frantic: pacing, spinning, twitching, thoughts turning in ever-speeding circles. It is intolerable, intolerable; that which he needs – the mercy of sleep – eludes him, and he cannot think his way into it.

John takes one look, strides into battle as he always does. As they do for each other. Reaches out and catches hold, wraps his arms around the trembling man. Pulls him, with slow resolve, into his own stillness, and he is an anchor. As Sherlock’s breath slows, John leads him to the settee. “How long’s it been?” John asks, speaking as one would to a frightened child.

Sherlock shudders. “Four days. Five. I can’t…”

John hushes him again, pulls him down beside him. “Close your eyes.” Cards his hands slowly, carefully, through sweat-damp curls. Rocks him gently. And in some instinct heretofore unexpressed and entirely unexpected, he sings. The tune comes first, a verse repeated, barely audible. The words came back to him much later.

_Sing me the songs I delighted to hear,_  
 _long, long ago, long ago._  
 _Now you are come all my grief is removed;_  
 _let me forget that so long you have roved._  
 _Let me believe that you love as you loved,_  
 _long, long ago, long ago._

The voice stops. The light fades. There only remains the slight, sweet sound of mingled breaths.


End file.
